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Missing ESPN or NBC on your TV for NFL, college games? Here's what you can do

bret bloomquist, el paso times
·3 min read

The football season is kicking off and some of your channels that carries the big game might be missing.

Spectrum users are missing all of the Disney-owned networks, which includes the entire ESPN family of networks (though not local ABC affiliate KVIA).

Disney channels, including ESPN, are currently not available to Spectrum cable customers
Disney channels, including ESPN, are currently not available to Spectrum cable customers

DirecTV users are missing the local NBC affiliate KTSM, which will televise the Dallas Cowboys' Sunday night game against the New York Giants.

So what to do?

How did we get here?

Money.

DirecTV is in a dispute with Nexstar Media Group, which owns KTSM and 196 other television stations around the country. Nexstar wants to charge DirecTV more than DirecTV is willing to pay to retransmit their signal.

Same goes with Disney and Spectrum's parent Charter Communications: Spectrum says Disney is overcharging them, Disney says it isn't.

When will this end?

Who knows. These feuds are not infrequent and they usually get resolved before long. Every side is hoping the viewers take their side and complain to the other side. They are likely tracking complaint calls so those might not be completely futile.

Don't, however, call the radio station ESPN El Paso (KROD). They didn't do it.

How do I get NBC?

The network is broadcast for free over the air, which would involve installing an antenna and watching TV the way the grandparents did. This isn't easy, but not surprisingly DirecTV has a video and a site that will walk you through this. Warning: While you'd like instructions like this to begin "take a coat hanger, find the hole on top" that's never the way of it.

The plus side is this doesn't take much money and if everything is solved next week you aren't stuck with a streaming service. Which brings this to another option.

Hulu Live TV, Fubo, Sling TV, Peacock and YouTube TV all stream NBC. This isn't foolproof, YouTube TV recently had a feud with Disney and was without those channels for a bit. Most of these services have free trials, YouTube TVs is for 60 days. The full-tie YouTube TV package is $72.99 a month.

And you can always go to a sports bar to watch Sunday night games. There is an industry hoping these feuds last forever.

How do I get ESPN?

There is no rabbit ears workaround for this, but there is a long list of streaming options.

ESPN+ is affordable ($10 per month) and has a broad range of college and pro sports, including plenty of UTEP and El Paso Locomotive games, though it doesn't have everything that's on ESPN and ESPN2. It will have the Manning cast for Monday night games.

There are also a list of streaming services similar to mentioned above: Sling TV (starts at $40 a month, but $20 for the first month), Fubo, DirectTV Stream, YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV, among others.

And sports bars, but they probably aren't on your side when it comes to getting your channels back on the TV in your living room.

Bret Bloomquist can be reached at 915-546-6359; bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Missing ESPN or NBC on your TV for football? Here's what you can do